Tips for Writing an AAR

[tripletnerd2]

Hello everyone! I want to try and eventually write up an AAR, but obviously I don't have the time to do it all in one go (especially with NaNoWriMo next month as well as general classes). How exactly do you all record your specific sessions? Do you record video for a certain amount of time in-game? Or just take notes as you go?

 

[hjarg]

Screenshots and memory for me.
And plentiful saves, so I can go back and make more screenshots.

 

[Tom D.]

I just take a lot of screenshots and look at them whilst writing so that I recall what happened. Also memory, but that depends on how much time is between playing the game and writing it down.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Notes. Pages and pages of notes. And if you're doing a narrative style, an outline.

 

[dark_melancholy]

I take screenshots whenever anything interesting happens and try to save as often as I can. That way I can go back to old saves and comb through them like an archaeologist to figure out what's happened and small details that can tie into the narrative of the current chapter. But then I write so slowly that I forget everything that happened in the game session by the time I get around to finishing a chapter...

 

[tripletnerd2]

Thanks guys!

 

[RossN]

Hundreds of screenshots of anything that seems interesting/important and memory.

​

Depending on the game there are natural breakpoints for sessions - in my CK2 AAR for instance I'd try and play through a single rulers reign at a time.

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

Taking notes always helps. Even if about rather insignificant events or things that happened a more or less long time ago. These things always add flavor to your entries. Storing a political "world" screenshot every few years helps to keep track of the general developments around you, which also adds spice to your narration.

Now that I say it, maybe I should write a Paradox AAR too. Been a long time.

 

[tripletnerd2]

Thanks!

 

[Dunaden]

Like everyone else, take screenshots of everything that happens and the people involved and save the game regularly or at least around times of important events, so you can go back.

What I am doing for my current AAR is actually creating a timeline of births, deaths, wars, events, and any thing else I took a screenshot of in an Excel spreadsheet (with references to the individual screenshots), so I don't have to flip through the hundreds of screenshots to every time I want to reference a past, or future, event. The timeline is acting as a rough outline for the AAR and I can just search the time line for specific people or titles or types of events and jump right to them and to figure out which screenshot I need to upload for the next chapter I post.

 

[stnylan]

I've done a mixture of different data collection methods, as it were, but in large part it depends on you.

For example, if I am writing a more casual AAR just taking screenshots is usually fine for me. However, if I want to write something more detailed (or to have a more detailed background) I need to write notes. This is because I am an unreliable taker of screenshots.

 

[El Pip]

Just wing it. If you forget an event, just make up something more interesting and/or plausible. Or if an interesting event fails to happen, make one up to fill the gap.

I am of course somewhat exaggerating for, hopefully, comic effect. But to be more serious you don't (and shouldn't) have to recount every event that occurred and you shouldn't (and aren't) limited by exactly what did occur. (This is not applicable for a Gameplay AAR obviously, but you don't see many of those these days). So yes grab lots of screenshots and all the other good advice above, but there is no need to log everything and certainly don't worry if you miss something.

Also if you write at a normal pace then playing a considerable way in front of the period you are writing about can help, knowing what is going to happen helps identify significant events, or events that you can present as significant - "The incident with the Emperor's daughter in the flooded bidet seemed mildly amusing but unimportant at the time, but it would be the root of her deep seated fear of the sea, her lack of investment in the merchant and military fleets of the Sicilian Empire and the subsequent economic crisis, trade war and eventual defeat to the Royal Navy in the 3rd Battle of the Red Sea."

 

[Kautz]

Definitely keep a notebook on hand and write down important events, characters, and dates involved. You should also take screenshots of everything important or that you want to know as people above have said.

If you want to stay motivated and keep your memory of what happened, it is good to write relatively soon after you have played that part of the game, however, there is a downside to that. It will take much longer to finish your playthrough and PDS games tend to get updated often so you may very well have your saves become outdated which can be fatal if you are using mods.

I personally have found it was better to play through the entire campaign first, or at least get very far into it before I start writing to avoid this situation. Unfortunately, it means that what happened is less clear in my mind and if I forgot to write anything down (which has happened once or twice) it can be difficult to find it again. It is still better than having your game become outdated though.

 

[tripletnerd2]

Yeah, I've been doing that, plus I made a spreadsheet for helping me out with organization

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Yeah, I've been doing that, plus I made a spreadsheet for helping me out with organization

Never underestimate the power of excel for organizing anything.

 

[rosaann]

I always take more screenshots (I use the Steam screenshot feature) than I need to, and then sort through them and delete the ones I don't want. I also rename them as numbers so that I can tell how to reorganize the if Imgur cocks up the upload order.

One warning before you begin: it's a lot of work. I split my AARs into parts; I used to have >100 pictures in each, and it took me around 3-4 hours to write it all up. More recently I've learned to cut down and be less detailed and aim for ~60 screenshots, which still takes me a couple of hours to write.

 

[tripletnerd2]

Thanks!